The Milton City Council approved the event application for ‘Bands on the Blackwater’ which included an waiver of the city’s open container policy during this month’s executive committee meeting on Monday.
In its fourth year, Bands on the Blackwater is a free 19-week concert series offered to the community on Friday evenings featuring regional music acts. The concert series, which will run from April 10 through June 26, will take place near the south Riverwalk pavilion in downtown Milton.
The city’s Parks and Recreation department submitted the event application on February 9, including a request to waive city ordinances in the downtown area including open containers, noise and animal direct control.
In February’s regular meeting, the council voted in favor of adding an ordinance waiver option to event applications. The request would either be approved or denied by a council vote.
In the application process event organizers would have to submit their request to the city 60 days prior to the event. Applications must also specify the location of the proposed waiver including the time frame in which it would take place.
At the meeting, Milton resident Al Brewton expressed his concern regarding the unwritten response in the location area where the waived ordinance would occur.
“If you’re asking for a special exemption, that would have to be there too,” Brewton said. “That way everybody would know where you are going to be.”
Councilmember Jimmy Messick agreed.
“I think that the location ought to be identified on this,” Messick said. “It calls for a specific identification of the area and I think it ought to be on there.”
City Manager Brian Watkins assured the council he would add the locations, including the south Riverwalk pavilion, to the application. Watkins also said city staff is working on a procedure in which applicants would clearly identify which specific locations the proposed waiver would take place.
The event application and other agenda items voted upon by the council at the executive committee meeting will be voted upon by the council as part of a consent agenda during the city’s regular meeting Tuesday night.
This article originally appeared on Santa Rosa Press Gazette: Milton: First city waiver option part of consent agenda Tuesday